


let us see what it will bring

by Neelh



Category: Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9639848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neelh/pseuds/Neelh
Summary: “What do I tell Shauna?”“Whatever you want, I suppose. It is your choice.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> yet another immortal serena fic. i am about three and a half years late to this party, despite having had this idea floating around in my head for about two of those years

“What do I tell Shauna?”

AZ blinked in surprise at the girl’s first question to him after his fears were confirmed.

“Whatever you want, I suppose,” he replied. “It is your choice.”

A group of Mightyena passed by AZ and Serena, looking only a little perturbed as they made their way to Route 15. Of course, people didn’t usually hide in the woods near Laverre City, due to the Skorupi hordes that hid there and the impracticalities of trying to hide in a city, but AZ had practise in staying unnoticed. It was a little harder for Serena, being the young Kalos Champion, but she still remained perfectly hidden in the moss-green trees.

“I asked for her to meet up with me at the café in half an hour,” said Serena. “I… I’m planning on giving Froggy to her. She’ll be good to him, and the rest of my Pokémon, hopefully.”

AZ’s Floette flew out from where she had nested in the matted mess of his hair, and were she able to speak in human tongues, AZ believed that she would have some very choice words for Serena.

Serena seemed to understand Floette’s anger, however, and shook her head sadly. “I’d love for him to stay with me, but… He’s going to die, Floette, and I’d be so… I don’t know how I’ll cope when that happens.”

“I wish I could help you with that problem,” said AZ slowly, “but I unfortunately do not have much hope for any advice I could give you.”

“Yeah, Floette’s kind of… Yeah,” she replied, staring at her shoes. “I’d say that I wish that he could be with me forever, but that can’t happen. And it shouldn’t, AZ! I don’t want that great a loss of life to ever happen again, especially since we all fixed it. Um, no offense.”

“None taken,” AZ said softly. He was telling the truth. After three thousand years of learning and growing, he had found that manners were really not as important as mortals made them out to be.

Either way, Serena needed to think, and if that required using him as a sounding board, then so be it. He would sit in this forest with the girl, breathing in the humid air and the smell of mildew, and he would hear out every word that she had to say. He had no better way to spend his time, after all.

“I won’t… I can’t watch all of my friends grow old and die,” she whimpered, sounding like a lost Spewpa. “I’m going to be alive for so long, and they won’t, and what if I forget them? What if I forget my mother?”

The look in her eyes… She seemed to be begging AZ for an answer. And maybe he owed it to her to teach her. Maybe he didn’t, but he responded regardless of whether or not he should have.

“I do not remember my own mother, nor do I remember what the people I ruled over those three millennia ago were like. I do not truly remember the war, or how I built the machine, or how I met Floette,” he said. “When I speak of the past, I speak of what I have learnt from writing down my memories in thousands of books. Even then, it is not a comprehensive list. So many things do not feel important enough to write down. I have found something worthwhile to note, then upon checking the date that I last wrote something important, I have discovered that a decade has passed in what feels like an instant. I only remember the creation of this city because one of the first inhabitants tailored my clothes.”

Serena’s stare seemed emptier, now, like she was thinking. Like she was already growing far too old in far too short a time.

“Serena,” AZ spoke, resting a hand on her shoulder. Arceus above, she was so tiny and young. He could lift her up in one arm like mothers do with their newborn babies. “You are going to live forever. You never deserved this curse, but so far, at just…”

“Fourteen,” Serena mumbled.

“At just fourteen, you have already taught me that life is worth living. I’ll always owe you, Serena, for the weight that you have lifted from my shoulders in allowing me to forgive myself,” finished AZ.

Serena hummed noncommittally, and some part of AZ’s mind that once studied music tells him that her melancholia is expressed in E flat.

“I… If I were in your position, I think that I would consult with your friends and Pokémon before cutting off all ties,” said AZ after a moment of silence. Serena jolted from her slouched position, and he distantly realised that it must have been longer than a minute since either of them last spoke.

Checking her Pokédex, Serena replied, “That sounds like a good idea. But how did you know that I was planning on leaving my friends and Pokémon? I only mentioned leaving Froggy.”

AZ smiled, trying to hide the distant, bitter memories that sprung to his mind. “I too have made those mistakes, long ago.”

For a while, he thought that neither would speak until one of them left, and they would exchange a nod of acknowledgement. There would be far more time to talk to each other later on. Future millennia of conversations, in fact, and centuries wherein the two of them would never exchange a word.

But as soon as he heard Serena break a twig as she went to leave, he couldn’t stop himself from speaking again. He must have said more words in that week than in the past five centuries combined.

“You will live for a very long time, Serena,” he murmured. From the way her back straightened, he knew that she heard him perfectly. “Nevertheless, you have to live without regrets. They will only weigh you down in the end, and you deserve so much more than that. Do whatever you think is right. You have been chosen by ancient legends that even I have never met. I trust in your ability to do the right thing.”

Giving no other sign that she heard, Serena disappeared through the trees. A few moments later, he heard her friend’s chipper voice.

“Serena! How are you? Fennekin and I have just had the weirdest thing happen!”

AZ, Floette by his side, walked out to Route 15.


End file.
